A Christ Church man was sentenced to more than six years at Dodds Prison after a High Court judge rejected his claim that he was unaware of the victim’s age in a statutory rape case involving a 12-year-old girl.
After deductions were made to a 15 year starting sentence due to his guilty plea, mitigating factors and time spent on remand, Matthew Orlando King of Green Hill Drive, Silver Hill, is left having to serve six years and 253 days at Dodds Prison for having sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 14 on September 16, 2016. He was 22 at the time.
After King declined to address the court, Justice Beckles told the convicted man:
“Even though you were ten years older than the complainant and she was a minor, you continue to maintain that she initiated the interaction between the two of you on the day in question. You seem to blame her and hold her responsible for your actions as if you could not control yourself. Because the complainant was only 12 years old, any mistaken belief as to her age does not recuse you.
“I do not accept that you were not aware of the complainant’s age… I believe that you were aware that the complainant was a minor and nevertheless chose to have your way with her. There is a clear need to denounce your conduct and impose punishment which will act as a deterrent not only to you but also others.”
Along with the nature, seriousness and prevalence of such offences, the judge considered the victim’s tender age, the disparity between her age and that of the convicted man, the degree of force used, the exposure of the complainant to sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy, and the impact on the girl and her family as aggravating factors before reaching the 15-year starting point.
King’s lack of previous convictions, a favourable pre-sentence report that deemed him at low risk of reoffending, his guilty plea, which spared the complainant from reliving the ordeal of giving evidence, and his remorse led to a reduction in the starting sentence by two years.
Justice Beckles said: “The community has a justifiable concern about the prevalence of sexual offending against its most vulnerable members and expect the courts who sentence an offender who has committed such an offence to be dealt with in a way that clearly signifies that such criminal behaviour is abhorred and totally unacceptable.”
The judge insisted that sexual offences caused profound physical, mental, emotional, psychological and relational harm to the victim that can endure for a lifetime, while pointing to the complainant’s and her mother’s impact statements, in which both continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the incident.
“The family continues to suffer, the complainant continues to suffer and life for her will never be the same,” Justice Beckles added.
Principal State Counsel Romario Straker prosecuted the case, while King was self-represented.
In her statement to police, the complainant said that she knew King from seeing him sell plantains and that, on one occasion, he told her he wanted her number and “a piece of her”.
On the date, she had stayed home from school because she felt unwell and later encountered King while walking. She said that he grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth as she began screaming, pulled her behind a structure, and forced himself on her as she struggled. The complainant said she heard a vehicle pull into the driveway during the act, and he stopped, pulled up his trousers and walked away.
She later told her mother what had occurred.
When he was arrested, King told police: “I had sex with her but not in the way she say I did,” stating that the girl had approached him and begun complimenting him. He said that she began rubbing his chest and privates, which aroused him before having sex with him while sitting on his lap.
“Then, I did not ask her her age,” King told police.
(JB)
